The season of Italian Autumn Classics starts on Wednesday with the first race of the Trittico Lombardo, the Coppa Ugo Agostoni - Giro delle Brianze - GP Banca Popolare di Milano. In recent years, climbers like Rebellin or Sella, as well as alrounders like Pozzato and Colbrelli, but also more or less pure sprinters like Modolo or Bonifazio were victorious at the finish in Lissone.

1st

2nd

3rd

2016

COLBRELLI Sonny

ULISSI Diego

GAVAZZI Francesco

2015

REBELLIN Davide

NIBALI Vincenzo

BONIFAZIO Niccolo

2014

BONIFAZIO Niccolo

BOLE Grega

PONZI Simone

2013

POZZATO Filippo

PONZI Simone

ZAMPARELLA Marco

2012

SELLA Emanuele

BALIANI Fortunato

DI LUCA Danilo

Two years ago the organizers hardened up the parcours though to attract Nibali and give him the opportunity to prepare for the Richmond World Championships after his exclusion from the Vuelta - and they sticked to that approach. So the riders still have to tackle four laps on the hilly circuit around Lissolo instead of one in previous editions:

That circuit is not super hard though, last year quite a lot of sprinter managed to close the gap on the flat run-in to the finish, so it should be an open race, which favors attacking riders, but leaves the sprinter teams some hope as well.

Seems like Finetto will be on double duties for and . What's up with Celano though?

The only non-Italian winner in the past 14 years was Linus Gerdemann in 2008 - and looking at that list of participants, that's unlikely to change. But Romain Hardy is in good shape though and recently won the Tour du Doubs and Albasini looked good in Montreal, so who knows.

The race will be broadcasted live for the first time (as far as I can remember) on Rai Sport, PMG Sport and Eurosport (among others) on from ~13:45 cest